furnace weather

this week has been very different from much of the winter weather we've had so far. thursday left us with over 10" of white stuff and very strong winds. we're pretty used to this kind of stuff here in the midwest. however, thursday was different. it came on hard and fast. schools were closed, people were leaving their workplaces to try and get home before they got stuck at work. it was crazy. but something else happened that i've never seen before. our grocery store AND our major clinic in town closed their doors. things like that don't happen around here. snow is a normal occurrence and people just go on with their lives....just a little slower. it was quite a day.

the past two days since then have been crazy cold. when i spoke with my mom today, she said it was -27º when she woke up this morning....that's BEFORE the wind chill. it's pretty insane.

in our household we were lucky to wake up this morning to our thermostat reading 57º. yes, that's 57º in our home. why, you ask, was it so cold? well, our furnace decided to stop working in the middle of the night! the poor little dude's fingers were like icy little popsicles this morning. it was horrible. we called all over town to find someone to come fix our problem. it seems there were a lot of people in the same boat and the waiting times were hours long for emergency service. we were finally able to get someone out to look at it about an hour after we made our first call. of course at emergency service, weekend prices. why do things like this always seem to happen on the the coldest day of the year, and on a weekend? he found the problem pretty quickly and was able to fix it within an hour. it took nearly all day for our house to warm up to normal temperatures. although it was horribly cold and miserable for awhile, it makes you realize how lucky you are to have a home with heat while many do not.